


Choices

by kosmickway (KMDWriterGrl)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Bromance, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KMDWriterGrl/pseuds/kosmickway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan and Hotch have a beer in the Boardroom at Quantico and discuss the important things in life. A post-ep for "In Name and Blood."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mcgarrygirl78](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/gifts).



> I have a whimsical tendency to refer to Jack Crawford, Will Graham, and Clarice Starling as members of the "old school" BAU unit prior to our current group. So you'll hear them referenced in here as people Rossi has stories about. Just my little tip of the hat to Thomas Harris.

Morgan could count the number of times that he’d seen Aaron Hotchner walk into the Boardroom at the end of a shift on one hand. The local watering hole for both the Marine base and the FBI Academy just wasn’t Hotch’s cup of tea. Rossi was the one who was more likely to come out after a hard shift—he’d joined Morgan tonight and was holding court in one of the back booths with Emily and Garcia, several bottles of beer, and a plate of appetizers.   
  
Morgan was curious enough about his boss’s reasons for coming into the Boardroom that he ignored the “sit down at your own peril” look on Hotch’s face and slid into the other side of the booth with his beer.  
  
“Rossi’s spilling gossip on Jack Crawford and Will Graham,” Morgan said. “He says his next book is on the Lecter cases. Come on and listen—or else you’ll have to wait till it comes out in paperback.”  
  
“Not now, thanks, Morgan.” Hotch took a sip of his Scotch and stared morosely at the table.   
  
Morgan tried again. “Emily’s going to break out the 90s music here in a few minutes. She swears she can bust a move like no other. Don’t want to miss that.”  
  
Hotch half smiled, but it was hollow. “I’ll catch it some other time.”  
  
Morgan raised his eyebrows. This was more than Hotchner’s usual stoicism. There was something going on, something visceral that was gnawing at Hotchner worse than the case they’d just finished.   
  
“You worried about Strauss?”  
  
Hotchner snorted inelegantly. “Hardly. I think after today she’ll have something new to think about with regard to the BAU.” He met Morgan’s eyes for the first time. “How’s Prentiss? Is her head okay?”  
  
“She’s fine. Taking advantage of the painkillers to get a little silly.”   
  
_Not that that was a bad thing,_ Morgan thought. At the moment he envied Emily the Vicodin haze that was helping her cope with the pain of her head injury. He wouldn’t have wished a 2x4 to the head on anyone, but he wouldn’t have minded a little pain at the moment if it meant he could take a pill that would blunt the hard edges of the world.   
  
“She’s not drinking, is she?”  
  
“Just Diet Coke. Rossi’s watching her.”  
  
“She ought to be home.”  
  
“Mmm, I think she’s better off here right now. She’d never admit it but I think she’s feeling kind of shaky.”  
  
After Elle's disappearing act, Gideon's bizarre bail-out, and a wave of particularly heinous cases shortly after Rossi came to the helm, they’d all come to a consensus—it was necessary to go out after some cases, to be around each other in a non-work capacity. If they didn’t have that decompression time, if they just went home and sat in the dark, drinking alone, they would be more likely to wash-out-- like Elle. Like Gideon. So every few weeks, especially after particularly brutal cases, the core profilers in the BAU went to the Boardroom together and spent time drinking, eating, and determinedly NOT talking about work.   
  
This had been one of those cases. A dying father using his son as bait to kidnap and murder women made Morgan’s stomach go into free fall and the hair stand up on the back of his neck. And if the expressions on his team member’s faces as they boarded the plane back to DC were any indication, the boy was weighing on all their hearts, which was why Morgan himself had called for a trip to the Boardroom.   
  
Hotchner would be taking this case the hardest, though, Morgan decided. Hotch was, after all, the only team member to have a child.   
  
“Is it the case?”  
  
Hotch sipped his drink. “It’s never easy when it’s kids.”  
  
“Yeah, but is that ALL it is?”  
  
The words tumbled out of Hotch’s mouth so fast Morgan had to lean forward to hear them. “Haley left me. She took Jack and moved out and I don’t think she’s coming back.”  
  
Hell. Okay, this was one problem he REALLY didn’t know how to deal with. Morgan took a breath, sipped his beer to buy him time. “Damn, Hotch. I am so sorry.”   
  
The look on the usually unflappable profiler’s face was enough to skewer Morgan’s heart. The man was in SERIOUS pain.   
  
“Morgan, how am I supposed to choose between this job, this—calling and my family? I can’t just sit idly by, knowing that there are people out there whose sole purpose in life is to destroy someone else’s. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing that I had the power to do good and didn’t.”  
  
Morgan nodded, back on familiar ground. “I hear you, man. I do. My mom and my sisters—this isn’t their first choice of jobs for me. Every time I go home to visit my mom always gets us all around the dinner table and thanks the Lord that I’ve come home safe. But I’ve told her that I can’t NOT do this. It isn’t an option for me either.”  
  
Hotch nodded. “But then I look at Haley and Jack and I can’t do without them either! Haley is—“ He bit his lip, visibly struggling, “--was—still is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. And Jack is everything good and right I’ve ever done wrapped up into one package. But Haley says I’m losing him, that I’m losing them both, and I think she’s right.”   
  
Hotch knocked back the rest of his Scotch and really met Morgan’s eyes for the first time since the conversation began. “How the hell am I supposed to choose if I can’t have them both?”  
  
Oh yeah. This was definitely NOT his territory.   
  
Morgan rolled his empty beer bottle between his palms, struggling for the right words, wishing he had Rossi’s writerly skill or Penelope’s natural easy empathy. Finally he set down the bottle and looked Hotchner fully in the face.   
  
“I don’t know, Hotch. I honestly can’t tell you how to choose because I’ve never had to make that choice before—not for my family, not for a woman. And I’m lucky that I haven’t ‘cause I can see that this is eating you up.” He sighed and pursed his lips. “So I can’t really give you anything to run with here other than to tell you that we’re here.”   
  
He gestured back toward the booth where Dave, Emily, and Penelope were sitting. Rossi was holding up his Blackberry for the women to inspect. Whatever was on the screen was making Emily laugh so hard that she was leaning against Penelope, woozily holding her head and wiping tears from her eyes.  
  
“We’re your family, too, Hotch. And we’re here for you, whatever you choose.” He reached over to pat the older man’s arm and was surprised that Hotch allowed the contact. “Come on over-- just for a few minutes, whenever you’re ready. Don’t sit here and drink by yourself—not when you’ve got people who want you with them.”  
  
Hotchner looked at the hand resting on his arm, then briefly laid his own over top of Morgan’s. “Okay. I’ll be there soon. Thanks, Derek.”  
  
Morgan nodded and slid out of the booth, ready to go rejoin the others. “It’s nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.” He sauntered over to the bar to get another bottle of Bud, watching Hotchner out of the corner of his eye, and felt a swell of satisfaction when the stoic profiler stood up, straightened his tie, and walked over to sit down at the booth with the rest of his friends.

END


End file.
